Alcohol may pick you up a little bit, but it lets you down in a hurry.
My makeup wasn't smeared, I wasn't disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?
I think once I made up my mind that I was allergic to alcohol, and that's what I learned, it made sense to me. And I think it was kind of pointed out that you know if you were allergic to strawberries, you wouldn't eat strawberries. And that made sense to me.
I know I was an alcoholic because I was preoccupied whether alcohol was going to be served or not.
And I have always told the patients when I talk to them. When they come around and say, "What will you have to drink? Oh that's right you don't drink." Just speak up and say, 'Of course I drink. But I just don't drink alcohol.'
For 14 years, I'd been on medication for the pinched nerve, the arthritis, the muscle spasms in my neck, and I'd lost my tolerance for pills. If I had a single drink, the alcohol, on top of the pills, would make me groggy.